Forty years since ‘Please’ arrived and redefined what a pop duo could sound and look like, Pet Shop Boys get the definitive visual retrospective they’ve always deserved. ‘Pet Shop Boys Volume,’ out April 7 from Thames and Hudson, is a 560-page document of everything Neil Tennant and Chris Lowe have built across music, art, film, theater, design, and fashion. Over fifty million records sold. Three Brit Awards. Six Grammy nominations. Number ones including “West End Girls,” “It’s a Sin,” and “Always on My Mind.” The catalog alone is staggering, but this book is about the full picture.
Authors Chris Heath and Libby Sellers move through the duo’s entire visual output year by year, covering sleeve artwork, video stills, stage sets, costume designs, photoshoots, and collaborations with luminaries including Es Devlin, Zaha Hadid, Derek Jarman, and Wolfgang Tillmans. Philip Hoare’s original introduction is joined by new contributions from Sellers on Pet Shop Boys’ place in design history, and a foreword from Turner Prize-winning artist Jeremy Deller on the enduring power of their image. The jacket itself is designed by longtime collaborator Mark Farrow.
‘Pet Shop Boys Volume’ is a visual feast and an authoritative record of four decades of creative innovation from the most distinctive duo in pop history.